Hello? It’s Google calling mobile advertising in India

The race to capture the next frontier of advertising – mobile – has heated up with the behemoth of search-based advertising unveiling its products for the fast-growing medium. Soon after it invited advertisers to place search ads on mobile phones through AdWords, Google has now opened up its AdSense programme to mobile content providers. India’s booming mobile phone market is among 13 countries (among them, the US, England, Germany, Russia, China) where the new ad format will be made available.

While AdWords is a programme where advertisers can bid for keywords and place their ads next to Google’s search results, AdSense lets publishers or content providers place these search ads on their sites and get a revenue share out of them.

How Google’s AdSense works for mobiles

Google’s not the first mobile ad network (there’s AdMob and Third Screen Media, among others), but certainly the one with the most traction. Google’s AdSense for mobile is an extension of its programme for online publishers or websites. Simply put, it will let companies place search ads on their mobile WAP (wireless access protocol) pages, or mobile sites, which can be accessed on Internet-enabled phones.

Speaking to agencyfaqs! in a telecon from the US, Prashant Fuloria, director, product management, at Google says AdSense for mobile will “provide a revenue share to content providers and encourage them to create more mobile content”. Considering the limited size of mobile screens, Google will display shorter content on its search ads on mobile, and will also keep the number of ads lower, adds Fuloria. The ads will also tune themselves according to different mobile browsers and will be compatible with all WAP-enabled mobile phones.

Elaborating on the potential for mobile advertising in India, Fuloria adds, “As the market develops, I am confident that we will have a number of high-quality publishers, many of whom have WAP-enabled sites.”

Mobile advertising has been hailed by many industry professionals as the next big thing in Indian media. Most mobile technology and VAS (value-added services) companies like Mobile2win, Hungama Mobile, Mobileworx and Cellebrum offer different forms of mobile advertising, including SMS ads, WAP banners, advergames and branded content. Mobile technology company OnMobile is also developing a mobile marketing division.

However, one must keep in mind that 15 per cent of India’s mobile subscribers (193 million in July 2007) are estimated to have GPRS-enabled mobile phones – of which only 5 per cent actually visit mobile WAP sites.

Still, Rajiv Hiranandani, co-founder and country head of Mobile2win, thinks this is the right time for an AdSense for mobile. “Mobile search advertising is expected to explode in the next two-three years. AdSense can be a very strong tool for mobile advertisers.” He adds that the platform would be most effective for mobile operators, who are also the largest publishers on mobile. This refers to the WAP portals of operators like Airtel Live!, Idea Fresh and Reliance World, which are visited more often than independent WAP sites.

Manoj Dawane, CEO of Mauj Telecom, thinks that AdSense will actually help these independent mobile sites grow. “Mobile ad networks are the way things will work in the future, especially for non-operator sites. Operators will have to change their ‘closed garden’ concept and let other players showcase their sites.” Mauj Telecom is also working on developing its own mobile ad network, as it already has an inventory of online publishers on its popular portals, Shaadi.com and Fropper.com

The walled or closed garden concept is also a point to ponder. Most telecom operators have tied up with search engines on their WAP sites. So, Airtel has Google Search on its mobile portal, Idea is working on a customised portal with Yahoo! OneSearch and Hutch has MSN Live Search. Whether the competing search engines will be comfortable hosting Google AdSense along with their search box remains to be seen. If it does pose a problem, this could limit Google’s reach in the market.

Though Google has not announced any mobile publishers on AdSense, most content providers are expected to participate in the programme in an industry where business models are hard to define. ActiveMedia Technology is one of the agencies which could offer AdSense to clients. Raj Singh, executive director of the agency, says, “We could work with Google as a partner on AdSense. It is one of the advertising options we would advise clients to use for their mobile marketing campaigns.”

Widget advertising is Google’s latest offering

Fuloria adds that these gadgets can be created by the advertisers themselves and uploaded directly through the AdWords platform. They can bid for these ads through the same model and can also place them contextually, that is, depending on the content of the website, or based on the location or demographics of customers. Fuloria added that the cost of these ads would be decided through the bidding model, and no premium would be charged on gadget ads. The gadgets can be placed on any website or iGoogle (Google’s personalised home page) without any costs for hosting them.

Besides the usual measurement parameters like click-throughs and impressions, advertisers can evaluate the response rates of Gadget Ads through 62 actions done by the viewer, including clicking on a video, clicking on a tab or searching within the widget.

Shailesh Rao, MD, Google India, adds, “We want to leverage our advertising platform to do more than lead generation and be a branding mechanism. We are looking at advertisers interested in building brand awareness.” With the launch of widget advertising, Google may convince digital advertisers in India to look beyond banners and shoshkeles (floating ads).